Over at the Goodbye, Microsoft web site, Brad R. takes Ubuntu to task for abandoning dial-up modem users. Apparently Ubuntu no longer includes the GnomePPP dial-up package in the distribution, without which you can't get online via dial-up. It gets better: if you do have some way to connect, when you download something from the Ubuntu repository, the first thing Ubuntu does is update its 16+ megabyte repository index. Happy waiting! Brad concludes that "Ubuntu is for broadband users only."

You don't even have to know what version you have, it'll skip anything you check if you already have the latest version. Between it and WSUS Offline I can get a machine from a blank drive to a fully loaded and ready to sell Windows machine in under an hour and a half, with only 2 clicks from me about 1 hour in. couldn't be simpler.

As for him "hating" you seem to be forgetting that how EXACTLY is a user supposed to magically know which are good and which are half baked junk? Play software roulette? Spend hours in the forums which will just send you around in circles as half will always say its great and the other half say its poo?

Its not hate to point out when something is broken and frankly half baked software shouldn't even be IN the repos in the first place, the fact that so much of it is just helps to illustrate the fact that the whole repo idea needs to be rethought. A handful of guys simply can't provide QA and QC on that many packages, its just not possible. again don't know if it'll parse as links always seem to be hit and miss for me but here is an excellent article by one of the RH devs saying the whole system needs to be tossed, that "Linux is paying now for mistakes made 20 years ago" and he does make some VERY valid points.